Mayor of Liverpool City Region Election 2017

The Basics:

Why: Control resources and plans for improving the economy, health, education and transport services across the Liverpool area in the coming decades.

What is a mayor of Liverpool city region and why do we have one?

On the 4th May 2017 the people of Merseyside and Halton will vote for the new position of Mayor of Liverpool City region. The mayor of Liverpool city region will lead the recently formed ‘Liverpool city region combined authority’ as part of growing government program to establish more powers for local governments to bring more power to local people to decide the future for their area.

The new mayor will be responsible for working with other local council leaders to achieve key goals such as drawing investors to the city, developing a thriving economy, improving education, maintaining affordable public transport and housing and starting plans to build new homes across all of Merseyside and Halton.

To help achieve these goals the new mayor will have a 30 year budget of £900 million to invest in projects of their choosing giving them considerable influence over the budget in the region. This is different to the already existent mayor of Liverpool city who currently chairs the LCRCA.

After this election the Mayor of Liverpool city will hold similar powers to the new regional mayor, but only for the city of Liverpool itself and will step down from chair of the LCRCA to a board member.

What is the Liverpool city region combined authority (LCRCA) and why should I care about it?

The LCRCA is a recently set up local government body for improving the economy, transport and education across Merseyside and Halton. The LCRCA has been given around £450 million over the next 5 years and a further £450 million for the 25 years following to help the LCRCA direct economic, Education, housing and and transport development over the next few decades.

To facilitate this the combined authority has power to use any function that the individual councils under its control have when relating to transport or the interests of the local economy. This means the LCRCA has both the money and the legal powers to control growth on a larger scale across the local Liverpool area. The new mayor will chair of the LCRCA and will hold much of its power.

However, unlike certain mayors such as the mayor of London, the mayor of Liverpool City Region will have far less direct powers and must work to get the agreement of over a third of the LCRCA’s board of local council leaders in order to use the authorities powers. The board will also review the mayors spending periodically.

How and when to vote do I vote?

You can vote at your local polling station on the 4th May 2017 between 7am and 10pm or by postal vote up until 10pm on the 4th May. You can also vote via proxy. The deadline for postal and proxy vote applications 13th April. You will receive a polling card in the post before the election with details of your local polling station.

The electoral system:

This election will use the supplementary vote (SV) system. This is a preference based voting system and will allow you to choose a first and second choice for mayor. Votes will first be counted from the first choices. If any candidate reaches a overall majority from these votes alone they win and no further steps are taken. If this does not occur, the two candidates with the highest number of first choice votes progress to vote counting for second choices, all other candidates are eliminated from the running. The secondary choice votes are then counted from voters who’s first choice was eliminated and added directly to the totals of first choice votes of the two remaining candidates. The candidate with the most total first and second choice votes wins the election.

Hi, I am a student of the University of Manchester studying for Masters in Biomedical Sciences. My background in science has given me a natural need to be inquisitive, reason and debate which developed my love for politics and economics.